You could try fiddling with the BIOS settings as enable legacy support if thats an option.
Makes sure the hardware is configured correctly such master slave dip switch on the drive and some floppy cables had a twist on a pair of pins. Get a fresh floppy cable with no twist and jumper the floppy drive for A: or drive 0. Also perhaps try setting all the switches specifically for FORMAT. Not sure what they are for FreeDOS but things like /U for unconditional or /S for system disk or /144 /720 /D for the various 3 1/2 inch floppy formats. Or try a different format utility like Norton's old Safe Format. Good luck! Charlie B. On 11/10/13, Mark Brown <eufdp...@yahoo.com> wrote: > i have a dell optiplex gx280. > > first i found it doesn't support 2 floppys, only 1. fine. > > now, however, 1.44 mb diskettes format fine with ms-dos 6.22, > but freedos trying to format them says: > """ > # Boot sector unreadable, disk not yet formatted > Treating int 13.8 drive type 0x0 as 1440k > Using drive default 1440k ( Cyl=80 Head=2 Sec=18 ) > Cannot find existing format - forcing full format > Please enter volume label (max. 11 chars): > Full Formatting (wiping all data) > Format_Floppy_Cylinder ( head=0 cylinder=0 ) sectors=18 [int 13.5] > > > Critical error during INT disk access > INT 13 status (hex): 40 > Bits: seek operation failed > Description: seek failed > Program Terminated > [Error 192] > """ > > Does anyone know how to make FreeDOS format floppies on this? > Again, MS-DOS does just fine, but FreeDOS forces the 13 messages above. > then quits! > this is a user and a development question. > > If any one can shed light on it it'd be nice. > > > ........................................ > eufdp...@yahoo.com > eufdp...@yahoo.com > eufdp...@yahoo.com > eufdp...@yahoo.com > eufdp...@yahoo.com > ........................................ > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ November Webinars for C, C++, Fortran Developers Accelerate application performance with scalable programming models. Explore techniques for threading, error checking, porting, and tuning. Get the most from the latest Intel processors and coprocessors. See abstracts and register http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=60136231&iu=/4140/ostg.clktrk _______________________________________________ Freedos-devel mailing list Freedos-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-devel
